Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site druxo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ahuta!drutx!druxo!nap
From: nap@druxo.UUCP (ParsonsNA)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: sexist language/bad attitudes
Message-ID: <846@druxo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Apr-85 11:01:20 EST
Article-I.D.: druxo.846
Posted: Sat Apr 13 11:01:20 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Apr-85 04:08:44 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 29


Marcel Simon:
> If you'll recall, this entire discussion started when someone posted an article
> lauding the decision by some group to use the singular 'they' to indicate gender
> neutrality. The author praised this as a "small victory" in the fight
> against sexist language.

Nancy Parsons:
Again, Marcel, this is not so.  I repeat: the "small victory" was that a
group of conservative Christians with "traditional," unsensitive attitudes
became sesitive to the point of not only recognizing the effect of language
on their attitudes, but of being willing to change their language.  I would
have celebrated if they had chosen to use a "generic she," a "plural it,"
or any outrageous thing!!!

You may want to celebrate language.  I don't.  I want to celebrate
feminist consciousness in those forms that I detect are indicative of
positive growth.

>                                                                   ...It may
> be that sexism in language contributes subliminally to the reinforcement
> of sexist attitudes. However, I feel that a good dose of consciousness raising
> is worth far more than a book full of the singular 'they'.

You don't think that relearning habits of speech raises one's consciousness
of the prevalence of sexist bias in one's culture?

Nancy Parsons
AT&T ISL